Cemeteries

Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its
graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built
after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded in 1830, but we understand it was closed in 1994, and the premises are now in secular use.

The date above the entrance to the present-day Methodist (Wesleyan) Chapel in Ashford indicates it was built in 1899. This was, however a replacement for an earlier Chapel. Old Maps prior to that date indicate a much smaller building, situated on the same site, which appears to have been integral with Chantry Cottage, as indeed it is today.

The return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/449/1/9/14) for the place of worship in Ashford with a Wesleyan Methodist congregation describes a separate building, erected in 1830 with free seating for 45, and 48 "other" sittings, and used exclusively as a place of worship. The estimated congregation on March 30th was 27 in the afternoon, and 37 Sunday Scholars - no other services or classes. The return was completed by George Oldfield, the Chapel Steward, of "Geo. Oldfield & Co, Ashford Marble Works, Derbyshire".

The following notice in The London Gazette of 18th September 1900 (p.5775) recorded its registration for marriages:

NOTICE is hereby given, that a separate building named Wesleyan Methodist Church, situated at Court-lane, in the civil parish of Ashford, in the county of Derby, in the registration district of Bakewell, being a building certified according to law as a place of meeting for religious worship, was on the twelfth day of September, 1900, duly registered for solemnizing marriages therein, pursuant to the Act of 6th and 7th Wm. 4, c.85. Dated 13th September 1900.

According to a booklet available in the Church, entitled "Holy Trinity Church - Ashford-in-the-Water" published in 1996, the building was closed for worship in 1994, Accordingly, a notice of cancellation of the registration of "METHODIST CHAPEL Court Lane, Ashford" for marriages was published in The London Gazette of 2nd May 1995 (p.6354) in the following year.

The following information about the Chapel has been provided to accompany the photographs on the right. A list of people who have supplied the information
is included in the Acknowledgements, below.

[Image 1] This is a modern view of the old postcard of Chantry Cottage
kindly provided by Moyra Burnett. The building attached can be seen more clearly here
as the newer Ashford Methodist Chapel, which according to the date carved in the pediment
just above the doorway dates from 1899.

This may not have been the only Methodist Chapel in Ashford, however as White's Directory
of 1857 notes that ‘a neat Wesleyan chapel’ was built here in 1830. It
also mentions that the Baptists have a chapel in Ashford Lane, ‘in which no
service is at present performed’. This was as well as a Presbyterian chapel,
founded by William Bagshawe in 1700, now demolished, but believed to have been in
Buxton Road.

This photograph is taken from Holy Trinity Churchyard; the
name of the Cottage derives from the Chantry House, built in 1257 by Griffin, son of a
Welsh prince, for the saying of masses for his soul.[1]

Denomination

Now or formerly Wesleyan Methodist.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here,
or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this
will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Chapel was located at OS grid reference SK1954569738. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays)
Zoom out to 1:100000 to see County boundaries, and 1:500000 to show Parish Boundaries.

Reference

Places recorded by the Registrar
General under the provisions of the Places of Worship
Registration Act 1855 (2010) is available as a
"Freedom of Information" document from the website
What Do They Know.

You can specify either a Place, or OS Grid Reference to
search for. When you specify a Place, only entries for that place
will be returned, with Places of Worship listed in alphabetical
order. If you specify a Grid Reference, Places of Worship in the
immediate vicinity will be listed, in order of distance from the Grid
Reference supplied. The default is to list 10, but you can specify
How Many you want to see, up to a maximum of 100.

You can further refine your search by supplying other search terms.

You can specify entries with ('Yes') or without ('No') photographs.

You can specify a church or chapel's Dedication, to restrict entries to
those containing the term you supply as a dedication. So for instance, 'John'
would return 'St John', 'St Mary and St John', 'St John the Divine' &c.

You can specify a Street address, and likewise 'George' will return
George Place, St George's Street, George and Dragon, &c.

You can restrict the search to classes of Denomination. The exact denomination
is always shown in the results, although the search is for broad types. So you
can search for 'Methodist', but not 'Wesleyan Methodist' or 'Primitive Methodist'.
'Multi-denominational' includes Ecumenical Partnerships, and
'Other' means anything not covered by other broad classes.

Please note the above provides a search of selected fields in
the Derbyshire section of the Places of Worship
Database on this site (churchdb.gukutils.org.uk) only.
For other counties, or for a full search of the Database, you might
like to try the site's
Google Custom Search, which includes full webpage content.

Further Information

This site provides historical information about churches, other places
of worship and cemeteries. It has no affiliation with the churches or
congregations themselves, nor is it intended to provide a means to find
places of worship in the present day.